Driving mechanism of circular knitting machines



F. E. DEANS ETAL June 1, 1965 DRIVING MECHANISM OF CIRCULAR KNITTINGMACHINES Filed Oct. 9, 1962 5 Sheets-Sheet 1 PK: Imam-ens:

FREnERscK Exam DEANS AND CQRLYLE l-kaasrz'r MEIQRT Amway June 1, 1965 F.E. DEANS ETAL 3,185,242

DRIVING MECHANISM OF CIRCULAR KNITTING MACHINES Filed Oct. .9, 1962 5Sheets-Sheet 2 ATTORNEY June 1965 F. E. DEANS ETAL 3,185,242

DRIVING MECHANISM OF CIRCULAR KNITTING MACHINES Filed 001;. 9, 1 962 5Sheets-Sheet s \NVENToRs; FREDER\Q\ unman DEANS PHD Q'PRLYLE 5355GT wmemATPKERNEY June 1, 1965 F. E. DEANS ETAL DRIVING MECHANISM OF CIRCULA RKNITTING MACHINES Filed Oct. 9, 1962 5 Sfieets-Sheet 4 (mam-0 5FREDEFUQK Emma bar-w: m1) (g Enema-r @mduaewr I m 6 mm mufi-m m .m a 3:m E f m a AFPPQRN Y June 1, 1965 F. E. DEANS ETAL 3,186,242

DRIVING MECHANISM OF CIRCULAR KNITTING MACHINES Filed Oct. 9, 1962 5Sheets-Sheet 5 United States Patent Thisinvention is for improvements inor relating to driving mechanism of circular knitting machines and hasfor one of its objects to provide a driving mechanism'by whichreciprocatory knitting motion as well as continuous rotary knittingmotion can be effected in a reliable and efficient manner.

In the operation of circular knitting machines for producing hose and ofcertain other machines for producing patterned fabric, the knittingmotion is required to be performed sometimes as a continuous rotarymotion and at other times as a reciprocatory or oscillatory motion withalternating swings in opposite directions, as for example in knittingheel and toe pouches. It is usual in forming heel and toe pouches ofhose for relative oscillation to be caused to take place between theneedle cylinder and the cam box in such manner that knitting will takeplace on one group of needles usually extending around approximately onehalf of the needle circle, while the remaining needles hold their loops.Such reciprocatory knitting is necessarily slow compared with continuousrotary knitting and imposes a substantial limitation on the' rate ofoverall output of a machine. The change from rotary movement tooscillating movement is normally effected by means of a clutchinterposed in the drive of-the cylinder or cam box enabling the drive tobe taken alternatively from a shaft which is driven continuously in thesame direction or from a rack and pinion drive usually provided by anoscillating gear or quadrant engaging a driven pinion. The oscillatinggear is caused to move to and fro continuously during the operation ofthe machine and the usual manner of driving it is by a crank andconnecting rod. This manner of driving a quadrant does not permitattainment of thehighest possible efiiciency because it is inherent in acrank motion that the movement transmitted through, the connecting rodonly attains maximum speed for a very short proportion of the cycle, theremaining portions of the quadrant movement being occupied by periods ofacceleration and deceleration.

Attempts have been made to shorten the periods of acceleration anddeceleration and at the same time shorten the duration of the stroke ofthe oscillating gear and provide a longer period of movement at thefastest speed, by employment of a disc cam suitably shaped to providethe required speed changes in oscillatory movement. Such attempts havenot, however, up to the present time, resulted in producing a form ofconstruction which is completely satisfactory in practice. In theearlier constructions an undesirable feature is present which is foundto hamper increase of speed of oscillatory knitting, namely that thedrive transmitting members operate to apply the driving force to theoscillating gear out of alignment with the latter with creation of atendency for rocking of parts transversely in relation to their plane ofmotion. The invention seeks to provide an improved form of drive'whereby the foregoing disadvantages are overcome and an increase inspeeds of reciprocatory knitting can be secured.

In accordance with the invention. there is provided, a circular knittingmachine, driving meansfor performing reciprocatory knitting comprisingan oscillatory gear, two complementary cams for oscillating said gear,and cam 3,136,242 Patented June 1, 1965 followers co-operatingrespectively with said cams and coupled to the oscillatory gear atpositions which are in balanced arrangement in relation to the centralplane of the oscillatory gear. The two complementary cams have their camtracks so formed as to provide the required short periods ofacceleration and deceleration with a lengthened period of maximum speedmovement between them and to operate the oscillating gear in itsopposite directions of movement respectively. In the preferred form thecams are edge cams. k

In a convenient form of the improved driving mechanism the oscillatorygear or quadrant is of hollow form With sides spaced apart in thedirection along its pivotal FIGURE 1 is a perspective View from therear, showing part of the'driving mechanism of a circular knittingmachine,with certain parts broken away;

FIGURE 2 is a back view of part of the frame of the machine showing indetail an oscillatory quadrant and its mating pinion and the quadrantcams carried on the main cam shaft of the machine;

FIGURE 3 is a cross sectional view showing the quadrant and quadrantcams and cam followers taken on the line III-III of FIGURE 2;

FIGURE 4 is a view showing in detail the means for adjusting one of thefollowers to remove play;

FIGURE 5 is a view showing a means for timing the quadrant cams withrespect to the cam shaft gear in order to obtain alignment of the clutchdogs;

FIGURE 5 is a side elevation view of the parts shown in FIGURE 5; and

FIGURE 7 shows graphically the rate of travel of a cam driven quadrantas in comparison with the rate of travel of a crank driven quadrant.

FIGURE 1 shows the driving gearing for use on a circular knittingmachine having a rotary needle cylinder or two rotary co-axial needlecylinders. The needle cylinder, or each needle cylinder, is gear drivenfrom a vertical shaft which in turnis driven by a bevel gear 8 carriedon a horizontal shaft 9 which is mounted in bearings in the walls of aframe 4 (FIG. 2).

Freely mounted on the shaft are two pinions 1t) and 11 each of which hasclutch dogs respectively shown at 12 and 13 formed on one face, withsuch dogs projecting towards one another; Between the two pinions ismounted a clutch body 7 having dogs 14 and 15 formed on oppositelydirected end faces. The clutch body is mounted on splines formed locallyon the shaft so that it can be slid along the shaft to engage either ofthe clutch dogs of the pinions thus coupling the shaft to one or theother of the pinions 10, 11.

FIGURES l and 2 show the clutch body 7 in engagement with the pinion 11which is meshed with pinion 16 (FIG. 1) fixed to a lay shaft 17. Layshaft 17 (shown broken in FIG. 1) is driven .by any one of three speedchange gears 18, 19 or'Zil which mate respectively with three gears 21,22. and 23 mounted on a pulley shaft 24.

by a pulley which is itself driven through a friction clutch from themain power supply. It may be mentioned here that the friction clutchtakes the place of the idle pulley commonly used in this type ofmachine.

The foregoing description explains how rotary motion is imparted to theneedle cylinder cylinders and also describes the clutch arrangement. Inorder to change to oscillating motion of the needle cylinders the clutchbody must be shipped to disengage dogs from dogs 13 of the pinion 11(FIG. 2) and bring dogs 14 of the clutch body 7 into engagement withdogs 12 of the pinion 10. The latter is driven first in one directionand then in the other by a quadrant 29 which is caused to oscillate withshaft 30 on which it is mounted. The quadrant 29 is driven constantly(even during rotary knitting) in a manner which will be described later.

With the clutch in engagement with the quadrant pinion 10 the shaft 9 isnow changed from rotary motion to oscillating motion and this motion istransmitted through bevel pinion 8 to the needle cylinder or cylinders.

The drive to the quadrant will now be described. As can be seen inFIGURES 1, 2 and 3 the quadrant 29 is of open construction allowing itto straddle a cam shaft 31. It is firmly secured to the shaft 30, theends of which are located in bearings in the walls of a frame 4. Thisconstruction, by spacing the two bearings far apart, ensures a minimumof play in the quadrant. There are two cams 32 and 33 and these arefixed together and secured to revolve with the shaft 31. Secured to thequadrant are two spindles carrying respectively cam followers 34- and 35which follow the peripheries of cams 3?. and 33 respectively. The camsare so designed that they are complementary to one another, i.e., inmaking a complete revolution therollers are both always maintained incontact with their respective cams. By referring to FIGURE 3 it will beseen that with the cams being driven in a clockwise direction camfollowers 34 will be moved in a counter clockwise direction by the slope32a of the cam 32 thus driving the quadrant 29 in a counterclockwisedirection about the axis of the shaft 30. A counterclockwise movement ofthe quadrant will continue until the peak of the cam 32 is past thefollowers 34 and then the cam 33 will take over the drive, the slope 33amoving the follower 35 and the quadrant in a clockwise direction. I

Cam follower 35 is adjustable as shown in detail in FIGURE 4 so that anydiscrepancies in manufacture of the various components which couldresult in play between the cams and followers can be counteracted. Thespindle of follower 35 is provided with fiats which locate in a slottedhole in the quadrant and a screw 44 is positioned to bear onto thespindle to adjust its position in the slot. Screw 44 is adjusted untilthe follower 35 is contacting cam 33 while the follower 34 is also incontact with cam 32. The nut 45 on the spindle is then tightened to lockthe spindle to the quadrant (FIG. 3).

The cam shaft 31 has a spline formed locally, upon which a gear 3? ismounted and this gear is driven through an intermediate gear by a gearwhich is fixed to the lay shaft 17. As explained earlier the lay shaft17 is driven through the three speed change gears and is revolvingconstantly whether the cylinders are rotating or oscillating.

It will be appreciated that in order to ship the clutch to change fromrotation to oscillation it is necessary that the dogs of the clutch body7 be in alignment with the dogs of the quadrant pinion 19 when thechange is made. As the clutch body 7 and the quadrant 29 are revolvingat different speeds the timing of the disengagement from the one set ofdogs and engagement with the other set must be very precise. Thequadrant pinion 10 is assembled in mesh with the quadrant teeth and withthe clutch dogs of the pinion in the correct position to receive thedogs of the clutch body at the moment of shipping the clutch. Thispositioning is only accurate however, to a tooth pitch and in order toobtain finer adjustment the quadrant earns 32 and 33 are provided withmeans by which they may be adjusted angularly with respect to the gear39 which drives the cam shaft. This will now be described with referenceto FIGURES 5 and 6.

The cams 32 and 33 are located with respect to one another by means of astud or pin 36 the said cams being locked together between the shoulderof the stud and the nut 3'7, with a spacer 38 between them. The shaft 31is shouldered and the cam assembly is pushed up to this shoulder. Theend of shaft 31 is splined to be driven by the gear 39 which is mountedadjacent to the cam assembly. Gear 39 has a block 40 fixed to it in aposition where it straddles the stud 36 protruding from the cams. Theblock carries two screws 41 and 42 which contact the stud 36 on oppositesides and by adjusting these screws the cams may be rotated to a limitedextent with respect to the gear. This will have the effect of alteringthe position of the quadrant teeth with respect to the gear teeth, thusaltering the angular position of the quadrant pinion 10 with respect tothe pinion 11 so that upon disengagement of the clutch body from pinion11, pinion 10 can be positioned correctly to be engaged by the clutch asit is moved across.

Having timed the cams with respect to the gears the cams and gear 39 areclamped up to the shoulder of the shaft 31 by the nut and washer 43,through the inner race of a bearing in the wall of the frame 4 (FIG. 2).FIG- URE 2 also shows a cam 44 used for other purposes, which may beplined to the shaft and locked between the inner race and the nut washer43.

It can be seen from the drawings, particularly in FIG- URE 2, that theillustrated construction provides aquadrant and quadrant drive mechanismwhich is compact, with the forces contained in the plane of motion, thecams and followers being located within the side walls of the quadrantbody. The improved efiiciency obtained from this form of constructionwith suitably designed cams can readily be seen in comparison with thatof a quadrant driven by a crank through a connecting rod, by referenceto FIG. 7. In this figure the horizontal scale indicates of turningmovement of the cam or crank and the vertical scale shows the rates oftravel of quadrants driven by the two methods. Line B denotes the rateof travel by the crank method and line A by the cam method, with thecrank and cam shafts revolving at the same speed, It can readily be seenthat the stroke of the crank driven quadrant is composed nearly entirelyof acceleration and deceleration, the peak speed being maintained foronly an instant, whereas the speed of the cam driven quadrant ismaintained at a maximum for the majority of the stroke. It is obviousthat the maximum speed of the cam driven quadrant may be increased tothe peak speed of the crank driven quadrant by increasing the speed ofthe cam shaft, thus increasing the speed of the knitting cycle whenknitting by oscillation, and reducing the time taken to produce a pouchby oscillatory knitting.

What we claim is:

1. A driving mechanism for performing reciprocatory knitting on circularknitting machines comprising an oscillatory gear of hollow form, a shafton which said oscillatory gear is mounted, a rotatable cam shaftdisposed through the hollow form of said oscillatory gear, twocomplementary cams for oscillating the oscillatory gear in oppositedirections mounted thereon within the hollow form, two cam followerscooperative with their respective cams coupled to said oscillatory gear,mounting means supporting the shafts of said oscillatory gear and cams,a first pinion in mesh with said oscillatory gear having a clutch dog onone face, a supported shaft passing through said pinion and clutch dog,a bevel gear attached to one end of said shaft, 21 second pinionattached to the other end of said shaft and having a clutch dog on oneface, a clutch body disposed between said clutch dogs on said shaft andmovable to engage one of said clutch dogs, speed change gears, asupported lay shaft on which said speed change gears are mounted, athird pinion mounted on said lay shaft in mesh with said second pinion,drive means connected to said speed change gears, whereby rotaryknitting motion is changed to oscillatory knitting motion by disengagingsaid clutch body from the clutch dog on said second pinion and moving itinto engagement with the clutch dog on said first pinion.

2. A driving mechanism according to claim 1 wherein said cam followersare at balanced positions in relation to the central plane of saidoscillatory gear, and further wherein the two complementary cams havetheir cam track-s formed to provide short periods of acceleration anddeceleration with a longer period of maximum speed movement between saidshort periods, and are mounted to operate the oscillatory gear in itsopposite directions of movement respectively.

3. A driving mechanism according to claim 1 wherein the mounting meansfor said cam fol-lowers provides facility for accurate adjustment of thecams about the shaft for timing engagement of the clutch body with theclutch dogs on the two pinions.

4. A driving mechanism according to claim 3, wherein said mounting meansincludes a block formed with an elongated aperture, a stud engaging inthe aperture in said block, adjusting screws for fixing the stud inadjusted position in the elongated aperture, and means connecting theblock and stud one to the driving wheel and the other to the cams.

5. Driving mechanism according to claim 1 wherein the complementary camsare edge cams.

6. Driving mechanism according to claim 2 wherein the mounting for thefollower for one of the cams is provided on one side of the oscillatorygear and the mounting for the follower of the other of the cams isprovided on the other side of the oscillatory gear.

7. Driving mechanism according to claim 6 further comprising mountingmeans for one of the followers wherein it is adjustable on theoscillatory gear in a direction transversely of a line joining thefollower to the pivotal axis of the oscillatory gear.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 651,828 6/00Copland 7454 1,118,411 11/1'4 Gr-anz 7454 1,254,617 1/18 Montgomery74125 2,103,825 12/37 Robertson 7490 X BROUGHTON G. DURHAM, PrimaryExaminer.

1. A DRIVING MECHANISM FOR PERFORMING RECIPROCATORY KNITTING ON CIRCULARKNITTING MACHINES COMPRISING AN OSCILLATORY GEAR OF HOLLOW FORM, A SHAFTON WHICH SAID OSCILLATORY GEAR IS MOUNTED, A ROTATABLE CAM SHAFTDISPOSED THROUGH THE HOLLOW FORM OF SAID OSCILLATORY GEAR, TWOCOMPLEMENTARY CAMS FOR OSCILLATING THE OSCILLATORY GEAR IN OPPOSITEDIRECTIONS MOUNTED THEREON WITHIN THE HOLLOW FORM, TWO CAM FOLLOWERSCOOPERATIVE WITH THEIR RESPECTIVE CAMS COUPLED TO SAID OSCILLATORY GEAR,MOUNTING MEANS SUPPORTING THE SHAFTS OF SAID OSCILLATORY GEAR AND CAMS,A FIRST PINION IN MESH WITH SAID OSCILLATORY GEAR HAVING A CLUTCH DOG ONONE FACE, A SUPPORTED SHAFT PASSING THROUGH SAID PINION AND CLUTCH DOG,A BEVEL GEAR ATTACHED TO ONE END OF SAID SHAFT, A SECOND PINION ATTACHEDTO THE OTHER END OF SAID SHAFT AND HAVING A CLUTCH DOG ON ONE FACE, ACLUTCH BODY DISPOSED BETWEEN SAID CLUTCH DOGS ON SAID SHAFT AND MOVABLETO ENGAGE ONE OF SAID CLUTCH DOGS, SPEED CHANGE GEARS, A SUPPORTED LAYSHAFT ON WHICH SAID SPEED CHANGE GEARS ARE MOUNTED, A THIRD PINIONMOUNTED ON SAID LAY SHAFT IN MESH WITH SAID SECOND PINION, DRIVE MEANSCONNECTED TO SAID SPEED CHANGE GEARS, WHEREBY ROTARY KNITTING MOTION ISCHANGED TO OSCILLATORY KNITTING MOTION BY DISENGAGING SAID CLUTCH BODYFROM THE CLUTCH DOG ON SAID SECOND PINION AND MOVING IT INTO ENGAGEMENTWITH THE CLUTCH DOG ON SAID FIRST PINION.